Thursday, November 8, 2007

As fans of Mitchieville are aware, the annual Weblog Awards are in their final day of voting. The race is in the Best Science Blog category where the voting and the plotting is hectic and vicious. Climate Audit is a blog hosted by Steve McIntyre who is the cat who was instrumental in debunking the science behind the hockey stick climate graph. He generally focuses on the underlying statistical analysis of climate science and debunks a great deal of it. What has this to do with the Weblog Awards? A couple of the nominees who are true believers... or are read by true believers... have essentially pulled out the "anybody but Climate Audit" strategy to stop a Climate Audit win. This has lead the Junk Science blog to throw its support behind Climate Audit to counter this political move by the chicken little science blogs. So when you head over to cast a vote for Mitchieville, think about throwing a vote towards Climate Audit in the Science Blog category and piss of the doomsayers.

My point is that science is not decided by popular vote. The voting has become about as political as can be. I don't have a dog in the fight, and I'm pretty sure that McIntyre and I do not share the same politics, but if it pisses off those who have politicized the debate then I know which way I'm voting.

Not $30, not $40, not $50, not $60, not $70 or $80...not even $90...but you will save $100 if you buy....

That, to me, is what all the pseudoenvironmentalists sound like. Just tell everyone there is $100 off the price.

Yes, An Inconvenient Truth has some truth to it...but don't sell environmentalism. Have you seen a well-respected whore? How about a well-respected used-car salesman? There is something that turns people off about that high-pressure, gotta-have-it bull.

Yes, it would be fan-damn-tastic to reduce emissions, become clean-energy users, save some wildlife and ecological wonders...but just don't sensationalize it. It cheapens the cause and undermines the real science.